Faith-Based Law Schools and an Apprenticeship in Professional Identity

Abstract

In its groundbreaking 2007 comprehensive assessment of legal education, Educating Lawyers, the Carnegie Foundation urged law schools to provide an apprenticeship in professional identity. Rather than focusing on legal knowledge or skills, this apprenticeship is meant to focus on what Carnegie called “the wider matters of morality and character.” This article addresses: 1) Carnegie’s diagnosis of law schools’ failure to effectively train students in professional identity and why that failure matters; 2) How faith-based law schools are uniquely poised to provide a professional identity apprenticeship.

Keywords: Carnegie, professional identity, faith, law, character, morality